


dreams on the windowsill

by marcaskane (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: F/M, episode rewrite, season 2 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 04:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/marcaskane
Summary: “I… I heard you, what you said about Jell-O molds, but I thought I could do both. I really did. And Joel didn’t want that with me but I thought if I could find someone else, someone who understood…”“Hence the doctor,” Lenny offered.“The doctor,” Midge agreed.(consider this a rewrite of the last 2 minutes of the season 2 finale)





	dreams on the windowsill

            Even with all the studio lights shining in his face, Lenny could see Midge’s face as he sang to people across the country. He tried not to let his gaze wander in her direction—he never let himself look at people’s faces while he performed, certainly not if he knew them.

            But he caught a glimpse of Midge as he started to sing, and she looked transfixed, which was, in its own way, transfixing.

            Somehow, she’d raced backstage already by the time he got there. She held his gaze, looked at him with a fond smile, made a show of applauding politely and he gave a bow just for her.

            “That was some playdate,” she mused.

            “Worth standing out in the rain?”

            And Midge looked at him sternly, in a, “What a stupid question,” sort of way, but perhaps she could tell that he needed to hear the answer anyway, because she said, “Of course. I’d get drenched for you any day.”

            Lenny swallowed. He thought of the part of himself he’d just shown the world, the part of himself he’d just shown her. Neither of them were going to say anything about it while sober, not overtly, but he could ask her…

            “Drinks?”

            Her lips quirked up and she nodded.

            They found a cheap bar not far from the television studio, and together they sat and nursed their drinks in a dark, secluded corner. Midge was the most subdued he’d ever seen her, which was odd in and of itself, but they’d made it through two drinks and she still was barely talking, and that was enough to make even Lenny Bruce go out on a limb to talk about personal shit.

            “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m dying to know what’s got you so quiet.”

            She sat up in her seat, eyes widening slightly. “Oh, have I… have I been quiet?”

            He raised his eyebrows. “Just a tad, yeah.”

            Midge hesitated, appraising Lenny’s expression but not really meeting his gaze. “I’m opening for Shy Baldwin on his next tour.”

            “Fuck, Midge, are you serious?” Pride and affection coursed through his veins, and he leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “Why the hell didn’t you open with that? When did this happen?”

            “He called me earlier today, so it’s… it’s new.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I just didn’t want to bring it up when we’re celebrating you tonight.”

            “With great news like that, we should be celebrating both of us.” Lenny cocked his head at Midge, considering again how little she’d been talking. “So why isn’t this great news?”

            She opened and closed her mouth a few times—Christ, she really was off. Finally, she picked up her glass and downed the rest of her drink in one swig. As she allowed the glass to clatter back onto the table, she finally met Lenny’s eye. “Things are happening for me. But tonight, you made me realize that that means I’m going to be all alone. All alone for my whole life.”

            Lenny was the speechless one, now, and perhaps because he liked her so much, he admitted it. “I don’t really know what to say to that.”

            “I don’t know why you would. You just used the thinly veiled excuse of a fake musical to tell the whole country you felt the same way.”

            He didn’t bother to argue with her. Instead, he asked, “Had you really not realized?”

            “No,” she said meekly. “I… I heard you, what you said about Jell-O molds, but I thought I could do both. I really did. And Joel didn’t want that with me but I thought if I could find someone else, someone who understood…”

            “Hence the doctor,” Lenny offered.

            “The doctor,” Midge agreed. She looked down at her glass, remembered that it was empty, then reached across the table for Lenny’s.

            “That’s mine,” he told her dryly, but he didn’t actually care to stop her from plucking the glass from his hand.

            “I’ll get you another one in a sec.” Midge drank his whiskey and sniffed slightly. “I didn’t even think of him when Shy asked me. Benjamin, I mean. I’m practically engaged to the man and it didn’t occur to me to ask whether he might miss me if I go on tour in Europe for 6 months.”

            Lenny liked Midge but that didn’t mean he was equipped to _do this_ , talk about relationships and feelings for more than a brief two-second acknowledgment that things were shit. Which was why he posed his next question as matter-of-factly as he did: “If he had asked you not to go, would you have listened?”

            “What?”

            “Imagine you had asked him, and he told you he’s supportive of your comedy, just as long as you stay in the country. Just as long as you don’t tour for too long in a single go. Would you have listened?”

            Again, Midge looked at him as though he’d asked a stupid question. “No.”

            “Why?”

            “Because it’s an amazing opportunity.”

            Lenny squinted at her. “And I ask again, had you really not realized you wouldn’t be able to keep up a double life forever?”

            She sighed. Looked down at her hands on the table, then up at Lenny again. “We need new drinks,” she announced, rising to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”

            Midge meandered over to the bar, and Lenny watched her, mostly because he had nothing else to do while he waited. Mostly. While she waited for their order, she leaned on the bar, tapping her fingers absent-mindedly on the wood. Her eyes drifted to Lenny and she didn’t seem surprised or bothered that his gaze was already on her.

            “To being all alone together,” she announced as she handed over his drink.

            “Cheery,” he chuckled, but he clinked his glass against hers anyway.

            Neither of them spoke for some moments. Lenny briefly wondered whether they had arrived at the silent, depressed drinking part of the evening, but now that he’d asked Midge to be forthcoming, it seemed she was returning to her usual talkative self, because the expression on her face made it look like she was ramping up to say something serious.

            “Do people ask you whether we’ve slept together?”

            Lenny nearly started laughing. “People _tell_ me we’ve slept together, they don’t really seem interested in finding out if it’s true. I do try to tell them it’s not, for the record, but they usually go conveniently deaf right around that point.”

            Midge rolled her eyes. “Figures. Y’know, it’s a shame.”

            “Yes, it is,” Lenny agreed carefully. Feeling cautious because he had no fucking clue where she was going with this.

            “I’m just saying it would be good with us, don’t you think?”

            Only Midge Maisel could shock the notoriously shocking Lenny Bruce, let alone render him speechless twice in the same night. “Yet again, I… don’t really know what to say to that.”

            “It doesn’t matter. Now we can’t find out, out of spite.”

            “Right, right.” Lenny nodded, still feeling somewhat dumbfounded. “That’ll show them.”

            After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “We were never going to sleep together anyway, Midge. You’re so far out of my league it’s terrifying.”

            “That’s not true,” she murmured. “Didn’t we already agree that we’re both going to be all alone forever?”

            Lenny chuckled, trying not to think about how his throat had gone dry and his lips suddenly felt chapped. She was definitely looking at him like she was thinking of leaning across the table to kiss him, and he definitely wouldn’t mind, but they were both drunk and sad and she’d literally just pointed out that she was practically engaged to the doctor. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

            “I know.” She looked down at Lenny’s hands, curled around his glass like it was the only thing keeping him from floating away. Maybe it was—that glass and Mrs. Maisel, holding him down.

            Quietly, almost as though she didn’t want him to hear, Midge said, “I’m scared that I might try to sleep with my husband tonight when I leave.”

            Lenny considered her, and after quite a long silence, he said something that he’d only ever consider saying to Midge. “You could come home with me, if you want. Not to sleep together. Just to sleep.”

            He didn’t really process what this offer entailed until they were climbing up the stairs to reach his shoebox of an apartment. Even before his bail money and court expenses left him broke, even when he was still married, Lenny had never bothered with a nice apartment. He quite liked living modestly.

            But here he was, bringing some uptown Jewish housewife to his place, and he didn’t think she would judge him but she was down enough as it was that he just wished there were… more to the place.

            “So I have a bed and a sofa,” Lenny told her as he opened the door. “I’d offer to let you have the bed, but honestly, neither one is very comfortable, so I’ll just give you first pick.”

            Midge smirked. “Such a gentleman,” probably alluding both to this offer and to his clumsy but sincere attempt to help her out of her coat.

            “Yeah, yeah, just don’t go around telling everyone.” He hung her coat, then his, on the coat hooks by the door, and considered himself for a moment before tossing his suit jacket onto a nearby chair.

            “Never.” She smiled softly and glanced around his dark, messy shoebox. “Sofa is just fine with me.”

             Lenny nodded. “Very good. I’ll get you a blanket.”

            She had moved over to the sofa by the time he retrieved a blanket from the closet, but she was still on her feet, watching him thoughtfully.

            “Everything is falling into place for you,” he told her. If he didn’t like her so much, he might be jealous.

            “Partially because of you,” Midge pointed out. “I’d have been sunk without you.”

            “But now everyone thinks we fucked.”

            “So we never will.”

            “Out of spite.” Lenny echoed her words from earlier that night, amused. The sentiment was so very Midge.

            Her face was mostly in shadow, but he could tell that she was still itching to say something, could see her hesitating over…

            “Can I kiss you?”

            “Midge…”

            She blinked up at him, and she didn’t take a single step closer to him or reach out to touch him but _God_ , it felt like she was still reaching into his guts with her eyes. “No one wants to hear that we kissed but didn’t fuck. That’s a story just for us.”

            Lenny swallowed hard and thought about how little he deserved someone like her.

            He took a step forward. “To being all alone together,” he murmured.

            Midge hummed but said nothing. She took the blanket from his hands and dropped it carelessly on the sofa without breaking eye contact.

            She kissed Lenny and he kissed her and it was certainly because he was drunk but everything seemed to stop around them. All he could think about was the faint smell of cigarette smoke between them and how her mouth tasted like a combination of expensive lipstick and cheap liquor. They held each other at the waist, Midge’s hands curling into his sides and the tips of his fingers lingering on her hips but venturing no further.

            They didn’t budge. They didn’t breathe, or at least Lenny didn’t feel like they breathed—maybe he was too drunk to notice.

            Midge pulled away first, taking perhaps a step back but still standing way too close. Lenny knew, though, that she was not going to kiss him again. Her eyes had been bright before, but now she just looked tired.

            “Goodnight, Mrs. Maisel,” he told her softly.

            “Goodnight, Lenny Bruce.”

            She was gone when he woke up, blanket folded neatly on the sofa and a scrawled note on a scrap sheet of paper— _I’m always happy to come to your playdates_. Lenny smiled and tucked the paper away in a book.

            The next time some asshole asked how good she was in bed, Lenny almost broke his nose, he punched him so hard.


End file.
